Bruges: day 8-9, #beernotfear
We had set an alarm for 9:30pm, with the intention of sleeping in a little before exploring Bruges for a few more hours and hopping back on the train towards Brussels. Srna woke up before all alarms, scrolled through instagram, looked for cafes around the hostel for breakfast (and stumbled upon the Blackbird Cafe - so cute), and tried to keep quiet so that Lindsey could get as much sleep as she needed.
S: All of a sudden I got a facebook message from one of my friends that lives in Leuven, that just said “Hey, are you okay?”. I thought to myself, huh.. that’s pretty strange. I went on to respond with, “Yeah, I’m great - how are you?!”... only to stop myself mid-message and think “oh no”. I immediately typed the word “Brussels” into google, clicked on “News”, and watched as news of terror flooded my phone screen. I woke Lindsey up and we sat in bed, trying to get a feel of the situation. I immediately called home to make sure everyone was okay, and they were.
We tried to absorb as much of the information that we could, but it all seemed a little bit surreal. We were in the exact same metro just a day before, passing by the same stop. We had passed that stop over 10 times in the last 10 days. Not only that, Lindsey was due to fly out of Brussels Zaventem Airport in two days. We kept our cool, called everyone we could think of that would be worried, and continued to answer the facebook, text, and email messages that poured in. To everyone that thought of us: THANK YOU. We felt your love and care as we tried to calmly go about our day. We headed to the Blackbird Cafe, and sat down to have an amazing breakfast in the sun. We’re talking as extensive as one can get with breakfast - THREE types of pastries (for each of us), ham, cheese, jams, coffee, orange juice - the works! At this point, Bruges still wasn’t feeling the tension and panic that was quickly spreading through Brussels. With news that all trains were shut off, we realized that we were stranded in Bruges and had to come up with a plan of action as soon as we could. We enjoyed our breakfast and research hotel and hostel options. We lucked out and booked a hostel room for the same night, and once our breakfast had settled, we were on our way to discover our new hostel.
Once we got there, we realized that there may have been a slight problem with the booking, but the staff at Bauhaus were more than accommodating, and provided us with a room in an apartment. (L: it’s possible that the booking problem was user error...my bad!! When I explained to the woman at the reception desk that we were supposed to be going to Brussels, but needed another night in Bruges, she was extra helpful. So grateful.) The apartments are part of the same building complex, they’re just large, with three double rooms each. Our apartment was incredible, and what was even better was the fact that nobody else checked into the other two rooms, so for less than 50 euros, we ended up with a large apartment to ourselves for the night.
We walked to the nearby grocery store, got some necessities (Babybel cheeses, and clementines - and other dinner groceries), and then settled into our apartment. We had a lot to process, and luckily, we found ourselves with a completely free day, so we lounged, meditated, watched TV, read books, and Lindsey even did some yoga. It was quiet, cozy and comfortable.
L: It’s not often that I have an entire afternoon where, not only do I have nothing scheduled, and there’s nothing that I have to do immediately, but there’s actually nothing to do. We all so rarely have that opportunity. Even when we have an unusually free day with “nothing to do”, there are still always things we think we could/should be doing. When Srna and I settled in for the afternoon, I sat on the couch and was struck by the realization: I don’t have to do anything. Nothing. There are no responsibilities that I can fulfill from here. No grading, no class planning, emails, phone calls, writing, nothing. All I’m responsible for right now is making the best decisions considering our health and safety. So I did a guided meditation. And then another one, and another one, and another one. When I’m home, I make time to practice yoga of one form or another (be it meditation, physical yoga, mindfulness in various forms, etc.) every day. But I have to actively make time for it. To have an entire afternoon to devote to practice was the best thing that could have happened in a time where most of the world was responding with fear.
Once we felt like we had gotten enough solitude for the day, we headed downstairs to the hostel bar, ordered a beer and grabbed some playing cards. Srna taught Lindsey to play bridge, and we talked about the concept of “Beer, not fear”. (L: If I had to get a tattoo from this trip, that is 100% what it would say.) Dinnertime rolled around, so we headed back up to our room and devoured the fresh baguettes and groceries we bought earlier. More free time, more TV, dumbing ourselves down with some “Bob’s Burgers” (not that that’s a bad thing, we 100% enjoyed it) - and then heading downstairs again for another beer. The bar was swarming with French kids that couldn’t have been older than 17 or 18. We scoped the place, trying to find anyone we could make friends with, but we really didn’t fit in. Luckily, two is already company, so we were fine enjoying our beer and laughing about what was happening around us. It was nice to keep busy so that we didn’t have to think about the atrocities happening just an hour’s drive away. We also wrote our blog URL on all of the coasters, so if you look us up and find this blog, we advise you to look above the bar and spot the books hanging from the ceiling.
After a strange day of rest and turmoil, we called it quits and got some sleep. Breakfast at this hostel starts at 8, so we set an early alarm, gathered all of our belongings, and headed downstairs to the bar. We ate toast, hard boiled eggs, a number of spreads, and had some much-needed coffee. The next few hours were spend reading / watching Vlogbrothers videos, while we waited to be picked up and taken back to Brussels.